The Journal of Development Studies

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Piped Water Access, Child Health and the

Complementary Role of Education: Panel Data
Evidence from South Africa

Korstiaan Wapenaar & Umakrishnan Kollamparambil

To cite this article: Korstiaan Wapenaar & Umakrishnan Kollamparambil (2018): Piped Water
Access, Child Health and the Complementary Role of Education: Panel Data Evidence from South
Africa, The Journal of Development Studies, DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2018.1487056

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2018.1487056

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The Journal of Development Studies, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2018.1487056

Piped Water Access, Child Health and the

Complementary Role of Education: Panel Data
Evidence from South Africa
KORSTIAAN WAPENAAR & UMAKRISHNAN KOLLAMPARAMBIL
School of Economic and Business Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

(Original version submitted July 2017; final version accepted May 2018)

ABSTRACT This study establishes the causal impact of piped water access on child health in rural South Africa
(2008–2015) through the use of a panel dataset and a quasi-experimental sample space. By employing an ordinal
measure of child health as the dependent variable within linear fixed effects, logit, ordinal probit, and propensity-
score matched linear as well as non-linear Difference-in-Difference, it is demonstrated that positive health benefits
for children with access to piped water are observed if and only if the minimum level of educational attainment of
the primary-caregiver is equal to or greater than seven years. This finding of complementarity is demonstrated to be
a function of an individual’s (in)capacity to evaluate water quality: people below this threshold suffer from a piped
water bias, place insufficient weight on the observable characteristics of water when determining water quality, and
are subsequently less likely to treat piped water preceding consumption.

1. Introduction
Access to clean and safe drinking water is a self-evidential necessity for ensuring the healthy growth
and development of children. This is in part due to a child’s decreased natural immunity to illnesses
and environmental factors which incurs a higher probability of suffering from water transmitted
diseases and ailments (Adewara & Visser, 2011). In recognition of its importance both the United
Nations and the South African Government guard access to clean and safe drinking water as a
fundamental human right.
Access to piped water is a potential mechanism for ensuring that publicly provided water is of a
minimum standard of quality and is fit for use. Yet water-infrastructural as well as individual-specific
behavioural factors may alter the quality of water preceding consumption which may in turn lead to
negligible health benefits for children. Within the South African context, it is estimated that 20 per
cent of deaths in children under the age of five are the result of diarrhoea – a particularly prevalent
ailment associated with the consumption of contaminated water (Chola, Michalow, Tugendhaft, &
Hofman, 2015). The financial and social costs incurred by poor water quality therefore necessitates
appropriate analyses be undertaken to determine the conditions under which improvements in health
status and the avoidances of child deaths can be ensured when access to superior water sources is
provided.

Correspondence Address: Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, School of Economic and Business Sciences, University of Witwatersrand,
Pvt bag 3, SEBS, WITS, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa. Email: Uma.Kollamparambil@wits.ac.za
Supplementary Materials are available for this article which can be accessed via the online version of this journal available at
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2018.1487056

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

The South African context is unique for an analysis of this nature due to its history: Apartheid
inherited water infrastructure required significant expansion in access to account for the historical
racial and spatial inequalities associated with a dual-tier economic system (Earle, Goldin, &
Kgomotso, 2005). The burdens associated with this demand have contributed to instability and
fluctuations in water supply as well as heterogeneous quality throughout the country (Agenbag &
Balfour-Kaipa, 2008; SAHRC, 2014). At present, no robust, nationally representative analysis of this
nature has been conducted for the South African circumstance.
International empirical studies investigating the impact of piped water on child health have had mixed
results. Jalan and Ravallion’s (2003) seminal article estimated a 21 per cent fall in the prevalence of
diarrhoea for rural Indian children under the age of five years who have access to piped water. The authors
highlighted that these health gains largely by-pass children in poor families, especially when the mother is
poorly educated. However, the authors did not identify a threshold for the mother’s education necessary to
ensure falls in the prevalence of diarrhoea, nor were they able to illustrate dynamics and account for time
invariant variables due to the cross-sectional nature of the data. Galiani, Gertler, and Schargrodsky (2005)
confirmed that improvements in water quality in Argentina reduced the frequency of child mortality
induced by water born ailments. The study made use of community level variables which overlook the role
of individual specific effects. In contrast, Lechtenfeld (2012) confirmed that the provision of piped water in
urban Yemen led to an increased prevalence of diarrhoea in children. Zwane & Kremer (2007: 20) have
similar findings in the context of Kenya. The range of estimates in the literature demonstrate that the
country-specific contexts associated with water quality standards and distribution processes lead to limited
external validity. Moreover, studies to date have made inadequate efforts at employing methods that
collectively and within a single framework account for self-selection, leverage panel data methods, and
establish the conditions required to ensure health improvements for children with piped water access.
The objective of the article therefore is to establish the relationship between piped water access and
child health outcomes and identify the necessary complementary conditions to ensure a positive
relationship. This article employs panel data for the period of 2008 to 2015. The methodology and
results establish an argument for causality through a range of models including linear fixed effects,
logit, ordinal probit, and propensity-score matched linear as well as non-linear Difference-in-
Difference. The study is novel and contributes to the existing literature as it is the first analysis of
this nature in the South African context, and insofar as it establishes a necessary complimentary
relationship between piped water access and the caregiver’s educational attainment estimated as a
function of a specific number of years of education. The third contribution is explaining the mechan-
isms through which the primary caregiver’s educational attainment functions to positively influence
the health impacts of piped water access for a child under their care. This tier of analysis demonstrates
that an individual’s bias towards assuming piped water as safe regardless of the observable character-
istics of the water is a function of an educational attainment threshold.
The text is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses the data and descriptive statistics of both
datasets employed in the study. The econometric methodology is outlined in Section 3. Section 4
contains the results of the analysis. Section 5 concludes.

2. Data and descriptive statistics

The two sources of data employed in the study are discussed in the following sub-sections.

2.1. Primary data

Data used in the primary analysis is drawn from the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) of
South Africa. Overseen by the Southern Africa Labour Development Research Unit (SALDRU, 2016),
the panel-dataset contains individual, household and derivable district level variables sampled over
four periods with approximately two year intervals since 2008. The study uses the NIDS panel weights
to account for systematic non-response and attrition to ensure national representability.
 Piped water access, child health, and education 3

2.1.1. Variable discussion. The study sample includes children up to and including the age of 15 years
who occupy rural households. Additional data regarding each respective child’s household and caregiver
characteristics is included. A total of 4818 individuals comprise the sample in the initial period. A complete
description of all variables is contained in Appendix 1 and summarised in Tables 1–3 and Table A1a–c.
The child level measure of health is ordinal with five levels of perceived health status. This ranges from a
high of ‘Excellent’ to a low of ‘Poor’ (Table A1a in Supplementary Materials presents the distribution).
The broad nature of the measure comprises all factors which determine an individual’s general health and
confirms the validity of the variable due to the range of impacts that the quality of water might have. Due to
the contemporaneous nature of the measure, recall bias induced inaccuracy is of no concern. To check for
measurement errors in response, we re-group the five category ordinal response to three and two categories
to check the robustness of results using ordinal and logit regression analysis respectively.
The treatment variable is drawn from the household-level questionnaire which establishes water
source type based on 11 options. This treatment variable, Pipe, is in dummy format and captures if a
household draws water from a piped tap. The tap may be located within the household, within the
property limits, or publicly available to the district. In accordance with Fink, Günther, and Hill (2011),
these options are considered superior.
Further controls include real monthly district and regional incomes. Regions are defined at the cluster
level, comprising 400 different areas. Districts are broader and categorised into 54 areas. These serve to
control for the possibility of superior health status in more affluent communities and regions whereby
municipalities have a larger tax base to draw from and allocate to the provision of public goods. The
aggregate educational attainment for each of these levels controls for knowledge diffusion and learning
processes regarding appropriate water treatment and hygienic practices that are better understood by a
higher educated district or region. The combination of these two levels accounts for the localised and more
macro level effects of education and earnings and reduces the potential for omitted variable bias in the
treatment variable should these variables be correlated with piped water access. Household level aggregate
educational attainment of adults and real monthly income are also estimated to capture similar effects.
Proxies for the quality of municipal governance and the existence of publicly provided goods control for
potential heterogeneity in piped water quality and are captured in whether the municipality collects refuse

Table 1. Summary statistics of household and locality characteristics (Panel Weighted; Rural)

Variable Sample N Mean Std. Error

FULL SUB-SAMPLE
Access to Tap Whole 17,205 0.7469 0.0315
Weekly Municipal Refuse Removal Treated 12,337 0.09 0.0166
Control 4811 0.0157 0.0044
Cooking with Electricity Treated 12,339 0.5942 0.03
Control 4813 0.3336 0.0445
Presence of Toilet Treated 12,363 0.1806 0.0162
Control 4793 0.0709 0.0088
Real Monthly HH Income Treated 12,384 3848.64 1,698,169
Control 4821 3145.37 225.9941
Real Monthly District Income Treated 12,384 4102.65 156.9664
Control 4821 3318.92 208.2355
Real Monthly Region Income Treated 12,384 4579.18 154.6714
Control 4821 3797.72 121.9163
Avg. HH Education of Adults Treated 10,800 8.095 0.1689
Control 3997 6.9986 0.406
Avg. Education of Cluster Treated 12,384 6.0693 0.1053
Control 4821 5.2858 0.1816
Avg. Education of Region Treated 12,384 6.2041 0.0972
Control 4821 5.556 0.0776
Metro Treated 12,384 0.02 0.0133
Control 4821 0.006 0.0047
4 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

Table 2. Summary statistics on individual characteristics (Panel Weighted)

Variable Sample N Mean Std. Deviation

FULL SUB-SAMPLE
Perceived Child Health Status Treated 10,069 4.295 0.019
Control 3936 4.144 0.0365
No. of Children per Caregiver Treated 12,065 2.7277 0.0681
Control 4697 2.7908 0.0833
Primary Caregiver is Parent Treated 11,451 0.6671 0.0142
Control 4465 0.6197 0.0183
Age (Child) Treated 12,384 8.593 0.0658
Control 4821 8.5741 0.0848
Highest Educational Attainment of Primary Caregiver Treated 8534 8.0096 0.2116
Control 3076 6.9397 0.4211

Table 3. GHS summary statistics of individual characteristics (Sample Weighted; Rural)

Variable Sample N Mean Std. Deviation

FULL SUB-SAMPLE
Access to Tap Whole 115,837 0.704 0.0094
Water Perceived as Safe to Drink Treated 81,785 0.976 0.0020
Control 32,268 0.573 0.0144
Water is Free from Odors Treated 81,354 0.969 0.0029
Control 32,146 0.661 0.0142
Water is Clear Treated 81,748 0.966 0.0026
Control 32,219 0.627 0.0136
Water is Good in Taste Treated 81,707 0.954 0.0032
Control 32,230 0.611 0.0138
Water is Treated before Use Treated 80,925 0.059 0.0039
Control 31,805 0.187 0.0088

at least once a week. This variable has a dual function in furthermore accounting for the external sanitary
state of the household/district. This indicator functions in conjunction with a variable that establishes
whether the household uses electricity to cook and is a measure of the nature in which food is prepared as
well as being directly correlated with electricity access. The potential for a positive bias of municipalities
towards providing superior public goods and infrastructure to metropolitan areas is captured by a dummy
identifying whether the household exists in a metropolitan area. Along with water, sanitation is a key
determinant of child health (Fink et al., 2011; Lee, Rosenzweig, & Pitt, 1997; Kumar & Vollmer 2013; Patil
et al., 2014). A dummy that identifies the existence of a quality toilet in the household as per Diaz &
Andrande (2015) is included to measure the household’s state of sanitation.1
The number of children overseen by each caregiver serves to account for the potential intensity with
which a child is cared for. A higher ratio decreases the time and resources available to be dedicated by
the primary caregiver to each individual child. Alternatively, a higher ratio may incur a fall in child
health status due to the greater potential of disease and pathogen transmission within the household,
akin to the household size variable commonly used in other studies (Lechtenfeld, 2012). The nature of
the relationship between the child and primary caregiver is accounted for by a dummy measuring
whether the primary caregiver is a parent. This captures the potential for increased effort in care of a
child on the basis of proximity of relations.

2.1.2. Descriptive statistics. Table 1 contains the panel weighted means and standard errors for all
variables employed in the primary sub-sample. These have been disaggregated between those with
(treatment) and those without (control) piped water to illustrate observable differences in variables
 Piped water access, child health, and education 5

between the two cohorts. The first row illustrates that nearly three quarters of the sample have access
to the analysis’ definition of piped water.
All variables demonstrate differences between treated and control cohorts, confirmed by rejected
t-tests of equivalence. Households with piped water access are more likely to have access to electricity
and are cleaner, more sanitary environments. Households with greater earnings and a greater aggregate
educational attainment are more likely to have access to piped water. These earnings and educational
effects hold for both regional and district levels.
Similar disparities between the two cohorts are observed for individual level variables contained in
Table 2. Households with piped water access have a higher average level of educational attainment for the
primary caregiverwith caregivers being more likely to be the child’s parent. The age of the children and the
number of children cared for by each primary-caregiver is seemingly similar between the two cohorts.

2.2. Supplementary data

Exploration into the key findings of the NIDS is conducted through a pooled cross-section provided by
the General Household Survey (GHS). The GHS is surveyed annually by Statistics South Africa
(StatsSA, 2009–2016), is nationally representative, and contains individual, household, and derivable
regional level data. A number of variables surveyed in the GHS are equivalent in definition to that of
the NIDS although the GHS has a far wider range of topics and specifics covered. The broader array of
information surveyed in the GHS provides a rich dataset from which the primary conclusions can be
unpacked and understood, overcoming the explanatory limitations of the NIDS data. To ensure
consistency in this tier of analysis, data is pooled from years in which NIDS was sampled except
for 2008. Due to the absence of key variables of interest in the 2008 GHS survey, data from 2009 was
used. The total GHS sample contains observations from 468,414 individuals. The GHS provides
individual and household level sample probability weights. The latter is used in the estimation process
insofar as a number of household level measures are employed. Standard errors were clustered at the
PSU level.

2.2.1. Variable discussion. A range of dependent and control variables were employed with the
control variables being structured to replicate those used in the NIDS analysis as closely as possible.
Four key variables unique to the GHS are employed to capture the determinants of perceived water
safety and measure whether an individual considers the water from their primary source to be clear,
free from odour, and good in taste. These observable components of water quality provide insight into
how individuals evaluate the standards of their water.

2.2.2. Descriptive statistics. Table 3 contains the weighted means and standard errors for all variables
used in the supplementary analysis that are distinct from those of the NIDS. Variables employed in the
GHS data that are equivalent to that of the NIDS are contained in Table A1c in the Supplementary
Materials. All measures are pooled across time, reflecting how they were analysed.
Table 3 illustrates that significant discrepancies in the perception of water quality exist between
piped and un-piped sources. On average, piped water is considered superior in its safety to consume,
its odour, its clarity, and its taste. Individuals with access to piped water are almost 13 per cent less
likely to treat it before use than those without piped water.

3. Econometric methodology
A total of four types of econometric estimation techniques are undertaken, each increasing in
sophistication and robustness by improving in capacity to account for potential biases of the treatment
estimate generated by confounding factors, endogeneity, and non-random self-selection into treatment
(Mulcahy & Kollamparambil, 2016). Baseline models with a dummy variable for piped water access
6 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

and other control variables are estimated. This provides a measure of the independent impacts of piped
water access on child health.
The foundational model (Model 1) provides a naive benchmark from which the subsequent models
can be compared. A Linear Fixed Effects (LFE) model was initially employed ignoring the ordered
nature of the dependent variable and estimated using ordinary least squares regression.

ΔChild Healthit; ¼ βo þ β1 ΔðPipedWaterit Þ þ β2 ΔXit þ εi; t (1)

Where:

(1) Subscripted i and t are individual and time identifiers respectively;

(2) X is the vector of control variables; and
(3) ε is the composite error containing time variant conditional error.

Next, considering the ordered nature of the dependent variable, an ordinal probit was employed. This
estimates the impact of explanatory variables by measuring the probability of an increase in the level of
the dependent variable (Model II). The latent regression is summarised in vector notation as follows:


Child Healthi;t; ¼ βo þ β1 PipedWateri;t þ β2 Xi;t þ εi;t (2)

The value of the dependent variable is realised when the latent variable settles within the space of two
neighbouring probability thresholds μi and μi-1. This probability is the difference between the two
adjacent cumulative probabilities (Liao, 1994). In the case of this study, the continuous nature of the
latent variable, Child Health* is unobservable with the dependent variable’s realisation estimated
through the interval decision rule:

Child Health ¼ 1 j Xi if ðChild Health  μ1 Þ

Child Health ¼ 2 j Xi if ðμ1  Child Health  μ2 Þ

Child Health ¼ 3 j Xi if ðμ2  Child Health  μ3 Þ

Child Health ¼ 4 j Xi if ðμ3  Child Health  μ4 Þ

Child Health ¼ 5 j Xi if ðμ4  Child Health  μ5 Þ

The consistency and efficiency of the model necessitates ‘parallel lines’ whereby the coefficients of all
explanatory variables are equal between adjacent levels of the dependent variable (Borooah, 2002).
The parallel lines assumption is tested for and confirms that the coefficients for 17 of the 20
explanatory variables are equivalent across all levels at the 5 per cent level of significance
(Table A3 in Supplementary Materials). The Brant test rejects the equivalence of Metro, Regional
Income, and District Education.
Next, the five child health categories were re-estimated in Model II–I as another variant of ordinal
probit regression to include fixed effects with Das and van Soest (1999) (DvS) two-step estimator. The
Stata code by Hole, Dickerson, and Munford (2011) was employed for the estimation.
Further, the response variable was classified as a dichotomous variable to minimise the possibility
of measurement error in the response variable and logit regression employed with Chamberlain fixed
effects (Chamberlain, 1980) to further test the robustness of results (Model III) where the health of the
individual is considered to be at least good (Y = 1) or otherwise (Y = 0).
The above ordinal as well as logit estimators are limited due to: the absence of an appropriate
counterfactual which may bias results in the presence of self-selection, and; it not leveraging the panel
 Piped water access, child health, and education 7

structure of the data which establishes a likelihood that control variables and the treatment variable are
correlated with time invariant unobservables captured in the composite error.
The fourth model is a difference in difference (DiD) estimator (Model IV). Estimates were
conducted within a quasi-experimental sample space whereby outcomes between a treatment and
control cohort were compared for two pre-treatment and two post-treatment periods. The shrinkage in
sample size to 1452 children across all periods justifies the experimental space only be employed with
the DiD. Given the consistent results obtained through the linear fixed effects, ordinal logit with and
without fixed effects logit as well as fixed effects logit estimations, DiD is estimated as a linear model.
Nevertheless the ordinal probit as well as logit estimations of baseline DiD were also undertaken and
interaction effects presented in Table A4a–b in Supplementary Materials.
Individuals in the treatment group had two initial periods without piped water access, followed by
two periods with piped water access. The control group never has piped water access throughout the
sample period. The first differencing occurs within each cohort and is captured by Post, comparing
pre-treatment and post-treatment values. This differencing operates to capture changes in outcomes
common to both the treated and control groups resultant of differences in the pre and post treatment
trends. The second differencing occurs between the two cohorts to control for differences in permanent
characteristic between the treated and control groups. This is captured by the treatment identifier,
PipedWater. The interaction of the two is the DiD estimator, identifying a change in trend in the post-
treatment period that is the result of treatment status.


Child Healthi;t ¼ βo þ β1 PipedWateri;t  Postt þ β2 PipedWateri;t þ β4 Postt þ β5 Xi;t þ εi;t (3)

The DiD is based on the assumption that the conditional pre-treatment trends in the dependent variable
should be equivalent for the treatment and control groups (White & Sabarwal, 2014). The test pursued
in this study established the existence of a pre-treatment parallel trend through regression (Autor,
2003). The last time period before treatment (period 2) is taken as the benchmark and therefore the
statistically insignificant impact of period 1 is indicative that pre-treatment dynamics do not differ
between treatment and control cohorts (Table 4).
Model IV however suffers due to the potential for self-selection on (un)observables which leads to
imbalances in characteristics between the treatment and control groups (Rosenbaum & Rubin, 1983). This
necessitates measures be taken to account for potential structural differences between the two cohorts. The
first variation of the DiD estimator (Model IV–I) makes use of propensity score matching to overcome the
shortfalls of the standard DiD. Matching establishes appropriate counterfactuals for the treated on the basis
of pre-treatment observable characteristics. To overcome the ‘curse of dimensionality’ induced by the use
of a range of explanatory variables, a balancing score is created for each individual which reduces the
vector of covariates to a single value that measures the likelihood of treatment status, whereby 0 < P (T = 1|
X) = P(X) < 1. A forward-stepwise logit regression with a tolerance of 0.15 was estimated covering the
most recent pre-treatment period to identify the characteristics significant in determining the likelihood of
treatment status (Table A5 in Supplementary Materials).
Balancing tests were conducted following estimation of the propensity score, validating the strategy
as all pre-treatment characteristics fail to reject t-tests of equivalence (Table A6 in Supplementary
Materials). The matching process led to a fall in mean bias due to covariate imbalances from 37.4 per
cent to 8.4 per cent.
The second variation in the DiD (Model IV–II) makes use of a non-parametric kernel weighting.
The methodology replicates the preceding model, first employing a stepwise logistic regression and
thereafter generating a propensity score with a logit estimated on pre-treatment characteristics.
Observations are trimmed to ensure overlap within propensity scores and successfully tested for
balancing (Table A7 in Supplementary Materials). A further action is taken, whereby the propensity
score is employed to create a Gaussian kernel weighting with a psmatch2 standard bandwidth of 0.06.
Kernel matching makes use of weighted averages of all observations in the control to create a
counterfactual and has the capacity to reduce variance (Caliendo & Kopeinig, 2008).
8 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

Table 4. Parallel trend test for DiD estimation

Variable ChildHealth

Pre Treatment1 −0.292

(0.201)
Post treatment1 −0.301
(0.242)
Post treatment2 −0.186
(0.763)
Treat 0.406***
(0.135)
Treat#Post 0.118
(0.233)
Parent is Caregiver 0.00593
(0.0570)
Age 0.0157
(0.0228)
Age2 −0.000599
(0.00147)
Presence of Toilet 0.0615
(0.282)
Children per Caregiver 0.0857***
(0.0238)
Municipality Removes Refuse Weekly 0.634**
(0.262)
Cooking with Electricity 0.252**
(0.101)
Mean Regional Education −0.357**
(0.137)
Real HH Monthly Income (1000s) 0.108
(0.102)
Real Monthly District Income (1000s) −0.110*
(0.0593)
Mean District Education 0.0429
(0.0658)
Mean Adult Education in HH 0.00309
(0.0181)
Constant 5.421***
(0.523)
Observations 876

Notes: ***Significant at the 1 per cent level. **Significant at the 5 per cent level. *Significant at the 10 per cent level.

Next, the three variants of linear as well as logit estimation of DiD are expanded by the
inclusion of a dummy variable where piped water access is interacted in separate iterations with
each of the minimum level of educational attainment dummies to establish whether there exists
a key level of caregiver education that is a necessary condition for guaranteeing positive child
health benefits in the presence of piped water. All models have a total of 12 specifications.
Each specification employs an interaction between piped water access and a dummy measuring
the minimum level of educational attainment achieved by the primary caregiver. The interaction
term increases by one year of education in each specification seeking to establish a minimum
and necessary threshold required to ensure statistically significant health benefits are observed.
 Piped water access, child health, and education 9

3.1. Limitations
Regardless of the robustness in methodology, limitations of the study remain. The DiD estimator
continues to suffer from potential endogeneity through correlation between covariates and time variant
unobservables and/or omitted variables. However, these are considered minimal as the dependent
variable relates to the child whereas variables like income and facilities are household specific.
Further, a large proportion of the poorer households in South Africa thrive on child grant and old
age pensions (Case & Deaton, 1998) which minimises the probability of income being impacted by the
health of the child.
A further issue relates to how a small number of observations in the quasi-experimental sample is an
argument for low statistical power. Furthermore, availability of key variables within the primary data
set and the use of two concurrent data-sets within the analysis maybe construed as restrictive. This
matter is partly offset by clustering of standard errors and the use of sample probability weights which
ensures national representation in both datasets’ estimates. Finally, small variations in a select number
of variable definitions between the two datasets exist.
The lack of control for an individual’s HIV/AIDS status may be cause for omitted variable biases
which could inflate the treatment estimate (Obi et al., 2004). It is argued that within the DiD, these
effects are partly controlled for through the FE methodology as HIV status is time invariant following
contraction of the illness. The argument is imperfect as it is self-evident that a portion of the sample
may have contracted HIV/AIDS during the sampling period and that the intensity of the effects of
HIV/AIDS status may vary through time.

4. Results
While the linear fixed effects, ordinal logit,2 and logit regression results are consistent (Table 5) in
identifying access to piped water as significantly contributing to better health of children in rural South
Africa, the treatment effects are not significant in all three variants of linear as well as non-linear DiD
estimations.3 This indicates that the significance of Pipe observed in non-causal models are due to a
number of confounding factors capable of biasing estimates within non-causal models and that
heterogeneity in the impact of piped water exists. Model IV’s findings demonstrate that access to
piped water does not in and of itself guarantee that there are improvements in child health and suggests
the potential existence of necessary complementary conditions.4
The baseline DiD has a highly significant measure of Treat suggesting the existence of structural
differences in outcomes between the treated and control cohorts with the treatment group on average
having superior health outcomes. This validates the PSM approach for balancing pre-treatment obser-
vable characteristics to reduce this effect. As is observed, the coefficient value and level of significance
of the Treat variable falls in the propensity score matched models. As such, the weighting and trimming
process has accounted for a degree of self-selection into treatment and corrected for a degree of bias,
although a statistically significant difference between the outcomes of two groups remains. The quasi-
experimental sample space limits the sample to individuals tracked from the first period. Subsequently
the sample size falls with each survey period as individuals breach the 15 years of age threshold. The
Post variable, in conjunction with Age and Age2 serves to control for the effects that the aging process
may have for the health outcomes of sample members associated with increased resilience and trends
that change through time. In the baseline DiD Age and its second order polynomial confers statistically
significant impacts suggesting that older children have superior health outcomes and that this effect falls
with age. When accounted for by the PSM weighting and trimming, this effect is no longer present. The
insignificance of these variables demonstrate that age is of little relevance to child health within the PSM
DiD estimates, and that, subsequently, the systematic attrition associated with aging does not compro-
mise the validity of the results. A summary of DiD estimations are provided in Table 6 based on Model
IV–II. Although the treatment effect is calculated as -0.7, it is statistically insignificant.
The 12 specifications for the linear and logit DiD estimations with an interaction term between
piped water access and a dummy measuring the minimum level of educational attainment achieved by
 Table 5. Child health model outputs

Model 1 Model II Model II-I Model III Model IV Model IV-I Model IV-II

SPECIFICATION 1
Pipe 0.163*** 0.195*** 0.193*** 0.183** – – –
[0.046] [0.0604] [0.068] [0.073]
Treat – – 2.852*** 2.083** 1.948**
[0.774] [0.8628] [0.862]
Post – – −0.878 −0.153 0.089
[0.6848] [0.4008] [0.3873]
Treat*Post – – 0.702 0.288 0.251
[0.5292] [0.4441] [0.4985]
CAREGIVER CHARACTERISTICS
EducationalAttainment 0.001 −0.001 0.011 0.023 −0.089 0.031 0.079
[0.008] [0.0113] [.02] [0.003] [0.1732] [0.1286] [0.1359]
10 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

EducationalAttainment2 −0.0001 −0.0002 −0.000 −0.001 0.002 −0.005 −0.007

[0.0004] [0.0006] [0.000] [0.001] [0.008] [0.0078] [0.0078]
Parent is Caregiver −0.014 0.103** −0.111 −-0.06 −0.379 −0.304 −0.041
[0.030] [0.05] [0.072] [0.013] [0.2897] [0.2944] [0.4141]
Children per Caregiver 0.013 0.008 −0.002 −0.033 0.0844 0.162 0.341
[0.011] [0.014] [0.025] [0.026] [0.0902] [0.1465] [0.1708]
HOUSEHOLD CHARACTERISTICS
Municipality Removes Refuse Weekly 0.013 0.124 −0.027 −0.011 8.392*** 8.363*** 8.534***
[0.031] [0.1407] [0.074] [0.077] [0.9381] [1.1643] 1.3321
Cooking with Electricity 0.053** 0.092* 0.214** 0.025*** 0.279 0.229 0.001
[0.023] [0.048] [0.055] [0.059] [0.3835] [0.4787] [0.6477]
Presence of Toilet −0.016 0.148* 0.085 0.128 −0.072 −1.285 −1.3455
[0.025] [0.0813] [0.056] [0.074] [0.8316] [0.8631] [0.9225]
Mean Adult Education in HH 0.005 0.015** 0.009 0.011 0.121 0.091 0.034
[0.005] [0.007] [0.013] [0.014] [0.0898] [0.0928] [0.0822]
Real HH Monthly Income (1000s) −0.000 0.004 −0.001 0.000 0.023 0.031 0.0089
[0.001] [0.0041] [0.003] [0.003] [0.0415] [0.0516] [0.0605]
DISTRICT AND REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Real Monthly Regional Income (1000s) −0.118 −0.005 −0.001 −0.021 0.444 0.172 0.177
[0.008] [0.0262] [0.003] [0.021] [0.3750] [0.3296] [0.3055]
Real Monthly District Income (1000s) 0.002 −0.168 0.0116 0.006 −0.378 −0.349 −0.334
[0.003] [0.0165] [0.009] [0.009] [0.1629] [0.1411] [0.1422]
(Continued )
 Table 5. (Continued)

Model 1 Model II Model II-I Model III Model IV Model IV-I Model IV-II

Mean Regional Education −0.018 0.005 −0.157** −0.212*** −2.087** −1.111** −1.305**
[0.033] [0.0512] [0.070] [0.008] [0.7701] [0.6004] [0.6339]
Mean District Education −0.030 −0.037 0.011 −0.008 0.795** 1.059*** 1.260***
[.019] [0.034] [0.009] [0.048] [0.3926] [0.4105] [0.4557]
Metro 0.293** −0.287 0.946** 1.056** – – –
[0.148] [0.198] [0.378] [0.416]
YOUTH CHARACTERISTICS
Age 0.0198 −0.00003 0.030 0.033 0.361** 0.094 0.068
[0.021] [0.0179] [0.021] [0.022] [0.1694] [0.1421] [0.1316]
Age2 0.000 0.0001 0.001 0.000 −0.0056* −0.003 −0.006
[0.0005] [0.0011] [0.001] [0.0012] [0.0034] [0.0031] [0.0043]
Constant 4.245*** 4.553*** 4.283*** 4.058***
[0.211] [0.620] [0.617] [0.595]
Sample Size 9412 9412 9412 9412 876 876 824
R2/Pseudo R2 0.037 0.0165 0.023 0.106 0.315 0.297 0.309

Notes: ***Significant at the 1 per cent level. **Significant at the 5 per cent level. *Significant at the 10 per cent level. All standard errors are heteroskedasticity-consistent,
White standard errors and are clustered at the PSU level. Model IV–I refers to nearest neighbour PSM and IV–II Kernel Density PSM. Outputs for non-linear models II, II–I,
and III are coefficient values Marginal effects are presented in Supplementary Materials Table A2.
Piped water access, child health, and education 11
12 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

Table 6. DiD summary model IV–II

Post-treatment Pre-treatment Difference

Pipe 4.31 5 −0.69

No Pipe 4.1 4.06 0.04
DiD −0.73

Notes: ***Significant at the 1 per cent level. **Significant at the 5 per cent level. *Significant at the 10 per
cent level.

Table 7. Child health model interaction outputs

Model IV Model IV-I Model IV-II

Pipe*EducationalAttainment1 1.101 0.878 1.172*

[0.9453] [0.6709] [0.7094]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment2 0.925 0.894 1.256*
[0.8418] [0.6367] [0.6739]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment3 0.651 0.851 1.062
[0.8935] [0.6508] [0.6893]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment4 0.685 0.871 1.089
[0.8988] [0.6471] [0.6940]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment5 1.834* 1.815* 1.669*
[0.8907] [0.9371] [0.9651]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment6 1.533 1.757* 1.538*
[0.957] [0.9277] [0.9237]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment7 1.617* 2.027** 2.017**
[0.9736] [0.9895] [0.9878]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment8 1.511 1.948* 2.005*
[1.0511] [0.7585] 1.0115]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment9 3.169*** 4.263*** 4.059***
[0.9906] [0.7120] [0.7386]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment10 2.115** 3.409*** 3.28***
[1.0487] [0.7537] [0.7917]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment11 2.128** 3.402*** 3.235***
[1.0412] [0.7498] [0.7875]
Pipe*EducationalAttainment12 −0.814 6.436*** 6.319***
[1.3469] [0.5864] [0.6168]

Notes: ***Significant at the 1 per cent level. **Significant at the 5 per cent level. *Significant at the 10 per cent
level; All standard errors are heteroskedasticity-consistent; White standard errors and are clustered at the PSU
level; Model IV–I refers to nearest neighbour PSM and IV–II Kernel Density PSM.

the primary caregiver demonstrate that higher levels of education are more likely to ensure positive
health benefits for children when access to piped water is provided (Table 7 for linear DiD and
Table A8 for logit DiD). The models have differing initial thresholds and rates of dissipation in
impacts, yet a consistency can be inferred. Interpretation of these requires cognisance of the impact of
fixed effects induced bias in the presence of ordinal probit estimators: the level of significance may be
inflated. As such an intuitive approach to interpretation is pursued to account for these biases and
reconcile the results as valid. Within all variations of Model IV, tentative suggestions of significance
are observed from the five years of educational attainment level, falling and rising between the 5 per
cent and 10 per cent level until nine years of educational attainment is reached. All three of the DiD
models are consistent in suggesting a 1 per cent level of significance at the nine year level of education
as a necessary complementary effect to piped water access.
 Piped water access, child health, and education 13

4.1. Discussion
Key to understanding the enabling role of caregiver education for child health in the presence of piped
water is the establishment of behavioural responses of individuals to water source type and estimating
whether there exist positive biases in perceived water quality towards piped water sources. By
stratifying the GHS data into cohorts of individuals based on the vector of minimum educational
attainment, it is possible to measure the conditions under which water is considered safe and how the
water is subsequently treated and handled by people that differ in educational attainment. It is assumed
that the same treatment of water pursued by an adult would be provided to the child under their care.
Figure 1 contains the mean percentage of individuals likely to treat water that is perceived of as
unsafe, grouped by level of minimum educational attainment as defined by the vector of educational
attainment dummies. The values have been normalised to individuals with a single year of educational
attainment and rebased for this cohort to have a value of 0 to demonstrate relative differences between
groups. It is apparent that more educated people are more likely to treat unsafe water with a rapid
acceleration in this likelihood occurring at nine and above years of education.
A probit regression making use of a dummy, Treatment-of-Water, as the dependent variable and a
full vector of controls equivalent to the NIDS specifications (with the addition of the dummy Pipe) are
employed to expand on the analysis in a more robust manner. The regression on the full GHS sample
establishes the statistically significant finding that individuals who consider their water to be safe are
unlikely to treat piped sources. The capacity for an individual to accurately establish the safety of
water is therefore a potential mechanism in the determination of treatment.
By cohorting the analysis based on educational attainment, group variations in behavioural
responses to water were measured. A second probit regression was structured using the same
covariates as the core analysis with Treatment-of- Water once again being used as the dependent
variable. Additional covariates include the dummies Pipe and Safe-to-Drink, the latter measuring
whether the water is considered by the individual as safe to drink or not. A total of 12 specifications
were employed, each equivalent in the structure of variables but estimated on separate sample spaces.
These sample spaces are limited to include individuals breaching the ranges of education defined by
the vector of minimum levels of educational attainment dummies.
Relative % of Cohort who Treat Water Considered Unsafe
.25
.2
.15
.1
.05

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0

Adult Education: Highest Level Achieved

Figure 1. Treatment of water perceived of as unsafe by educational attainment cohort.

14 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

Table 8. Determinants of treatment: marginal effects (Probit Regression)

Safe-to-Drink Pipe

Cohort Coeff. Std. Err. z Coeff. Std. Err. z

FULL GHS SAMPLE

Highest Attainment: 1 Year −0.138 0.0093 −14.83 −0.042 0.0075 −5.60
Highest Attainment: 2 Years −0.137 0.0093 −14.77 −0.042 0.0075 −5.67
Highest Attainment: 3 Years −0.138 0.0092 −14.86 −0.043 0.0075 −5.64
Highest Attainment: 4 Years −0.139 0.0093 −14.88 −0.041 0.0075 −5.53
Highest Attainment: 5 Years −0.139 0.0094 −14.72 −0.041 0.0076 −5.40
Highest Attainment: 6 Years −0.139 0.0095 −14.54 −0.041 0.0077 −5.39
Highest Attainment: 7 Years −0.139 0.0095 −14.56 −0.043 0.0078 −5.49
Highest Attainment: 8 Years −0.141 0.0098 −14.43 −0.042 0.0081 −5.27
Highest Attainment: 9 Years −0.143 0.0102 −14.17 −0.042 0.0084 −5.03
Highest Attainment: 10 Years −0.152 0.0105 −14.43 −0.038 0.0880 −4.41
Highest Attainment: 11 Years −0.159 0.0109 −14.60 −0.034 0.0095 −3.67
Highest Attainment: 12 Years −0.164 0.0127 −12.83 −0.033 0.0113 −3.00

Notes: All Significant at the 1 per cent level. Coefficient values are marginal effects and interpretable as
probabilities.

As illustrated in Table 8, for all cohorts both Pipe and Safe-to-Drink have a negative, statistically
significant influence on the likelihood of treatment at the 1 per cent level – individuals are less likely
to treat water perceived of as safe and less likely to treat piped water when controlling for safety. The
coefficient values on the perceived safety variable are in all cases larger than that of pipe (and the
largest of all covariates) confirming that perceptions of water safety are the core determinant of
treatment regardless of educational attainment. Furthermore, the coefficient associated with perceived
safety increases in size as educational attainment increases. In contrast (and most importantly), the
Pipe coefficients fall in size. In the determination of treatment, more educated individuals place greater
weight on perceptions of water safety and less weight on source type, that is, higher levels of
education increase the likelihood that an individual responds to perceptions of water safety through
treatment and decreases the likelihood that they forego treating water on the basis of source type.
In order to establish a firm understanding of the likelihood of treatment it is therefore necessary to
understand the determinants of perceived water safety as this has the greatest weight in the determina-
tion of treatment likelihood. A final system of probit regressions was employed to estimate these
relationships. The GHS contains information on the observable characteristics of the water a person
consumes and includes data regarding whether the source is free from odour, is of an acceptable taste,
or is visibly clear. These, in addition to a full specification of covariates and the Pipe variable, were
employed to measure the relative weights groups of individuals place on these factors in their
determination of water quality. The foundational regression on the full sample without cohorting by
level of education confirms that Clarity, Odor, Taste, and Pipe are highly statistically significant and
inform an individual’s perception of water quality. The analysis is hereafter cohorted by educational
attainment to establish whether variations in these weights exist between groups.
Table 9 contains the marginal effects transformed covariate estimates of the fully specified probit
regressions cohorted by level of educational attainment. It is observed that the observable character-
istics and the source type are statistically significant determinants of perceived water safety and that
the size of the coefficients of each of these variables falls as educational attainment increases.
Figure 2 assists in interpreting the relevance of these results. Both panels have been normalised to
the first year of educational attainment and rebased to have this cohort at 0. The left panel illustrates
that whilst controlling for all available factors, the relative weight placed on Pipe in determining the
perceived safety of water falls as educational attainment rises, that is; when controlling for indivi-
dual, household, and contextual variables, more educated people are less likely to consider their
primary water source as safe solely due to the fact that it is a piped source. The right panel contains
 Table 9. Determinants of perceived water safety: marginal effects (Probit Regression)

Clear Taste Odor Pipe

Coeff. Std. Err. z Coeff. Std. Err. z Coeff. Std. Err. z Coeff. Std. Err. z
Cohort (Highest Educational Attainment)
FULL GHS SAMPLE
Baseline 0.094 0.0043 21.62 0.063 0.0048 13.00 0.039 0.0045 8.64 0.066 0.0043 15.33
1 Year 0.093 0.044 21.02 0.064 0.0049 12.85 0.038 0.0046 8.29 0.065 0.0043 15.12
2 Years 0.092 0.0044 20.94 0.064 0.0049 12.87 0.038 0.0046 8.30 0.064 0.0042 15.09
3 Years 0.097 0.0044 20.88 0.063 0.0049 12.77 0.038 0.0046 8.22 0.064 0.0042 14.97
4 Years 0.092 0.0044 20.87 0.063 0.0050 12.70 0.038 0.0046 8.22 0.063 0.0042 15.09
5 Years 0.091 0.0044 20.67 0.063 0.0049 12.70 0.037 0.0046 8.05 0.063 0.0042 15.02
6 Years 0.091 0.0044 20.49 0.062 0.0049 12.57 0.038 0.0046 8.16 0.062 0.0041 14.91
7 Years 0.090 0.0044 20.16 0.062 0.0049 12.59 0.036 0.0046 7.71 0.061 0.0041 14.63
8 Years 0.088 0.0045 19.56 0.061 0.0048 12.42 0.036 0.0046 7.76 0.058 0.0041 14.21
9 Years 0.086 0.0045 18.93 0.057 0.0040 12.20 0.035 0.0047 7.58 0.053 0.0041 13.18
10 Years 0.081 0.0045 17.89 0.057 0.0048 11.89 0.034 0.0048 7.26 0.047 0.0038 12.43
11 Years 0.076 0.0046 16.45 0.052 0.0050 10.46 0.036 0.0050 7.32 0.042 0.0039 10.85
12 Years 0.071 0.0052 13.65 0.053 0.0058 9.15 0.034 0.0055 6.17 0.037 0.0042 8.68

Notes: Baseline refers to the complete sample containing additional covariates Adult Educated and AdultEducated2. Coefficient values are marginal effects and interpretable
as probabilities.
Piped water access, child health, and education 15
16 K. Wapenaar & U. Kollamparambil

Piped Water Impact on Perceptions of Water Safety

0

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Index Impact on Perception of Water Safety

-.1

-.05
-.2

-.1
-.3

-.15
-.4

-.2
Adult Education: Highest Level Achieved Adult Education: Highest Level Attained

Figure 2. Weight of determinants of perceived water quality.

the sums of each of the values of the observable characteristics (clarity, odour, and taste) to create a
simple index.5 As illustrated, the relative weight placed on the index of observable characteristics of
water in the determination of perceived water safety has a negative relationship with the individual’s
level of educational attainment, that is; more educated people are less likely to regard water as safe
when they consider it to be of observably lower quality. Interpretation of the right panel is made
easier when recalling the definitions of the dummy variables included in the index. All three
dummies measure superior water quality based on observables, with the highest quality of the
water being considered a value of 1 in the index. As a result, individuals with a higher educational
attainment are less likely to consider water that is unclear, poor in odour, and poor in taste as safe.
Phrased alternatively, individuals with a higher educational attainment are more likely to consider
water that is free from odour, clear, and good in taste as safe.6 These factors inform the likelihood of
treatment as established previously.
To confirm a potential threshold difference in the trajectories of the water safety determinants’
weights, the nl hockey package was used. Written by Mark Lunt of the University of Manchester,
a linear piecewise regression allows for the establishment of an optimal knot in a bivariate
relationship demonstrating where statistically significant changes in the slopes of the relationship
exist. The data used to generate the preceding tables contain a significant change in slope at
6.744 years of educational attainment for the right panel and 6.875 years for the left, both
indicated by the dashed lines.7 By rounding to the nearest integer, at the seven years of education
level the rate at which the relative weights granted to piped water and observable characteristics in
the determination of water safety have a structural change in trajectory. This is consistent with the
lowest threshold established by Model IV and with the findings of Waddington and Snilstveit
(2009) – point of use treatment is a superior and the most cost-effective mechanism for guarantee-
ing improvements in water quality and, in this context, serves to ensure that piped water is
beneficial to child consumers.
The cohorted regressions demonstrate that there is a bias towards piped water and that lower
levels of education lead to a greater likelihood that piped water is assumed to be safe regardless
of the observable characteristics of the water. This reduces the likelihood that the water is
treated and serves as the mechanism through which education impacts child health when
interacted with water source type. It is acknowledged that an individual, based on past positive
experiences, may have justification in the static assumption that piped water is in fact superior in
safety. Thus, there is a value of positive benefit associated with it regardless of its current state,
 Piped water access, child health, and education 17

explaining its existence as a significant determinant outside of the realm of a potential bias. This
reasoning does not explain why variation in this value might exist between groups of individuals
with different levels of educational attainment when controlling for household, district, and
regional level characteristics. As such, the finding is deemed an educationally determined bias
which is reflected in the decreased weight granted to more relevant observable characteristics of
the water whilst controlling for context related variables.

5. Conclusion
Access to clean and safe drinking water contributes to an individual’s wellbeing and is of particular
significance to vulnerable groups who have a decreased natural immunity to contaminants. Through
the use of both cross-sectional and panel data, the preceding analysis illustrates that there is a positive
and causal relationship between child health and piped water access for individuals below the age of
15 in rural South Africa. This is conditional on the primary caregiver having at least seven years of
formal education. It is demonstrated that the level of an individual’s educational attainment determines
the degree of positive bias an individual has towards piped water, impacting the individual’s capacity
to accurately evaluate the quality of water. This subsequently determines the likelihood of water
treatment preceding use which has a direct effect on child consumers under the assumption that both
the caregiver and the child consume the same water.
South African public policy regarding water and sanitation programmes geared towards the
improvement of child and general health should be cognisant that individual circumstances inform
program effectiveness and that these circumstances have a substantial impact on the wellbeing of
children. Consequentially, sufficient effort should be invested in ensuring that adequate educational
programmes communicating the appropriate and safe use of water are provided in conjunction with
piped water access to guarantee that positive benefits are observed.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes
1. A quality toilet is defined as either a flush toilet with on- or off-site disposal or as a chemical toilet.
2. The marginal effects for each outcome is presented in Supplementary Materials Table A2.
3. The treatment effect in the non-linear DiD is not simply the cross difference indicated by the interaction variable, but the
difference between the cross differences for each outcome category (Puhani, 2012). These results are reported in Table A3a–b
in Supplementary Materials and are not significant, and thus can be identified as similar to linear DiD in Table 5.
4. The variable Metro was not outputted in Model III due to estimability issues within the quasi-experimental sample space.
5. Figures A1, A2 and A3 of the Supplementary Materials illustrate the relative significance of each of the observable components.
6. This is both self-evident and tested. Should the dummy variable be restructured to swap the outcomes that 1 and 0 identify, the
coefficient is equivalent but with the opposite sign. For example, the coefficient for the current variable Clear (whereby clear water
is identified as a 1) is equivalent but with opposite sign to the variable Unclear (whereby clear water is identified as a 0).
7. T-statistics are 27.65 for Pipe and 23.90 for Index.

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 Piped water access, child health, and education 19

Annexure A – Explanatory variable description

Variable Source Description Type

Access-to-tap NIDS; GHS Identification of the household’s main source of water Dummy
X=1 if the water is sourced from: 1) Piped tap in dwelling; 2) Piped
tap water on site or in yard; 3) Public Tap
X=0 if otherwise
Ref-Rem NIDS; GHS Identification of the frequency of removal of household refuse by Dummy
municipal authorities
X=1 if refuse is removed at least once a week by local authorities or
peoples hired by local authorities
X=0 if otherwise
Cook-Elec NIDS Identification of the main source of energy for cooking Dummy
X=1 if the primary source of energy is electricity from mains or a
generator
X-0 if otherwise
Toilet NIDS; GHS Measure of the type of toilet facility used in the household Dummy
X=1 if the toilet type is: 1) Flush toilet with onsite disposal; 2) Flush
toilet with offsite disposal; 3) Chemical toilet
X=0 if otherwise
RHHIncome NIDS; GHS Real monthly household income in thousands. Deflated with world Continuous
bank consumer price index data. In Rands
RDIncome NIDS; GHS Real monthly district income in thousands. Deflated with world bank Continuous
consumer price index data. In Rands
RRIncome NIDS; GHS Real monthly regional income in thousands. Deflated with world Continuous
bank consumer price index data. In Rands
HHEduc NIDS; GHS Average educational attainment of adults in household. In years Continuous
DistrictEduc NIDS; GHS Average educational attainment of adults in district. In years Continuous
RegionEduc NIDS; GHS Average educational attainment of adults in region. In years Continuous
Metro NIDS Identifier of whether household is in a metropolitan area Dummy
X=1 if the household is in a metropolitan area
X=0 if otherwise
ChildPerCare NIDS Measure of the number of children under the care of the primary care- Discrete
giver.
CareParent NIDS Identifier of whether the primary caregiver is the child’s parent. Dummy
X=1 if the primary caregiver is the child’s parent
X=0 if otherwise
Age (Child) NIDS Measure of the age of the child. In years. Discrete
Educational NIDS; GHS Measure of the highest level of formal educational attainment of the Discrete
Attainment primary caregiver. In years of education.
SafeDrink GHS Identifier of whether the water from the primary source is considered Dummy
safe to drink preceding treatment.
X=1 if water is considered safe to drink preceding treatment.
X=0 if water is not considered safe to drink preceding treatment.
Odor GHS Identifier of whether the water from the primary source is considered Dummy
free from bad smells preceding treatment.
X=1 if water is free from bad smells preceding treatment.
X=0 if water is not free from bad smells preceding treatment.
Clear GHS Identifier of whether the water from the primary source is considered Dummy
clear (has no colour/free of mud) preceding treatment.
X=1 if water is clear preceding treatment.
X=0 if water is not clear preceding treatment.
Taste GHS Identifier of whether the water from the primary source is considered Dummy
good in taste preceding treatment.
X=1 if water is good in taste preceding treatment
X=0 if water is not good in taste preceding treatment